With $2.4M and a dream, you can grab a piece of Monk's Island

Tuesday

May 7, 2013 at 5:49 PM

The Monk's Island property has already been subdivided into five lots.

By Wayne FaulknerWayne.Faulkner@StarNewsOnline.com

Although both are in Brunswick County, Monk's Island is no Bald Head Island.For one thing, Monk's totals 30-plus acres. Bald Head encompasses nearly 6 square miles.Monk's Island is but one of hundreds of spits of land peeking up from North Carolina's coastal marshes. There are 486 of them at least an acre in size, said Michelle Walker of the N.C. Coastal Resources Commission, citing a 2007 inventory by the agency.Most of the islands were concentrated in Brunswick, Carteret, Currituck, New Hanover and Pender counties, the inventory found.Monk's, like many of those, has no homes or human residents.But now a real estate company hopes to change all that in another attempt at what others have tried and failed to do – find a buyer for the tract who will share the original developer's dream of turning it into a miniature Bald Head Island.The price tag: $2.4 million for the approximately 11.5-acre developable part of the island. Another family owns the rest of the land, which cannot be built on, said Chat Wynne of Texas-based WGNC Real Estate, which is marketing the property.What sets the Monk's Island property apart from other uninhabited North Carolina islands is that it's already been subdivided into five lots that range in size from 1.42 to 3.55 acres, Wynne said.He added that the Monk's Island development is move-in ready. It has city water, septic, electric and phone service, all brought in under the Intracoastal Waterway. There's even a fire hydrant.“At 25-plus feet above sea level, it's the highest elevation of anything around you,” Wynne said.Like Bald Head, there's no bridge to the mainland. Unlike Bald Head, there's no ferry. But there are 10 boat slips already built on the island as well as slips and parking spaces in a gated community on the mainland, Wynne said.The original developer bought the property in 2003 with the Bald Head Island vision, Wynne said, but it fell victim to the real estate bust.“Delays in permitting put him off from the sweet spot to market and sell property,” he said. “That put him right as the market was starting to tumble.” This is not the only time the island has been marketed since the downturn.In 2009, the island went up for auction by Iron Horse Auction in Rockingham. It did not sell, though, Iron Horse partner Tom McInnis said Tuesday.And it was marketed again locally last year, Wynne said, but “they weren't casting their net out big enough.”The latest attempt at sale is termed a liquidation. The island's 2011 assessed tax valuation was more than $5 million, Wynne said. Improvements total $3 million, according to WGNC.At $2.4 million, it works out to about $200,000 a developable acre.“The owners had over $4 million invested in it,” Wynne said. “It's great property for a development group, a corporate retreat.”And a buyer won't even need a boat. The island already has a helicopter pad, according to its marketing brochure.